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No Planets.

1 (0.7%)

Dead Planets Only.

11 (7.7%)

Dead Planets and planets that have the potential to support life.

22 (15.5%)

Dead Planets, planets that have the potential to support life, and planets that have microbial life/proto-life.

37 (26.1%)

Dead Planets, planets that have the potential to support life, planets that have microbial life/proto-life, and planets with pre-existing biospheres that lack any sapient species.

43 (30.3%)

Dead Planets, planets that have the potential to support life, planets that have microbial life/proto-life, planets with pre-existing biospheres that lack any sapient species, and planets that are inhabited by other sapient species.

21 (14.8%)

Other.

5 (3.5%)

No Opinion.

2 (1.4%)

Total Members Voted: 142

[Haschel]

I went with "Other" because while I do think true Terraforming will be possible in the future, I don't personally believe it will ever be an economically viable option under any circumstance. Not to mention that if the process was initiated on, say, a dead planet I assume it would still take a very considerable amount of time, thus making it a very strange solution to an otherwise immediate (in comparison) problem. Instead, I see "Paraterraforming" as a much more realistic compromise, but I'm afraid I don't know enough about it to say what impact it has on the planet in question. The only flaw I'm seeing to that solution is the actual requirement for living on this "planet" on top of a planet. Why simulate that when we could probably just do it in open space anyway?

If I were to disregard that opinion and just straight-up answer I guess I'd go with Terraforming everything. Partially because I am kind of a careless jerk, and partially because I feel like that is just how a good portion of humanity is. Good thing we invented Politics to prevent that kind of thing (with limited success).

[Agdune]

If the planet does have a sentient species that isn't too established, I can see us moving in, setting up camp, and altering the atmosphere in slow degrees, all the while making excuses about how it's not all that lethal for them. Then we set up special relocation programs to move them all to some crappy planet somewhere.

Why would we do that though? If we can alter the planet's atmosphere, then we could surely just go setup home on another planet. It's not like there aren't enough goldilocks planets about anyway.
I mean, there's what... Four? Well, Three at least, in this system. Going to another solar system then saying "No, we want THIS planet." seems entirely illogical to me.

Because we're humans, and humans are amazingly short-sighted, self-absorbed, dicks who will almost always take the way that looks financially/economically/ideologically easiest but causes everyone involved amazing amounts of long-term suffering and sets us up for generations of trouble. Finding easy-to-terraform planets is pretty costly, I imagine. If we found one with aliens on it I don't think we'd hesitate for a second (as a whole) to take it over and make whatever excuses we could to justify getting rid of whatever's in the way.

Hell, I'm pretty sure that if we came across another species in space, it'd take us a few generations to even admit they were sentient, no matter how compelling the evidence we came across. "That metallic thing they're riding in orbit around their planet? Oh, I'm pretty sure that's just natural for them. The've clearly evolved to create space-homes through instinct alone as a survival mechanism. No civilisation or science here, start the terraforming!"

Actually, in total seriousness, I'm somewhat of the opinion that once we start coming across non-spacefaring alien species (however many millenia that may take), we're going to take a long time to realise that our own interpretation of sentience is only based off our own species, habits and cultures. We'll probably end up torching a planet of hyper-intelligent sentient fungus or something simply because we didn't see any metalworking apes on the surface, not realising that the weird, unpredictable heat pattern we kept detecting on the surface was actually the fungi giving each other lectures (using some form of communication we've never come across) in how to create unlimited energy using hyper-quantum mechanics or something. Seems perfectly in keeping with our collective character so far.

[Bohandas]

If the planet does have a sentient species that isn't too established, I can see us moving in, setting up camp, and altering the atmosphere in slow degrees, all the while making excuses about how it's not all that lethal for them. Then we set up special relocation programs to move them all to some crappy planet somewhere.

Why would we do that though? If we can alter the planet's atmosphere, then we could surely just go setup home on another planet. It's not like there aren't enough goldilocks planets about anyway.
I mean, there's what... Four? Well, Three at least, in this system. Going to another solar system then saying "No, we want THIS planet." seems entirely illogical to me.

Seconded

[Dutchling]

I voted Dead Planets, planets that have the potential to support life, and planets that have microbial life/proto-life.
Assuming that microbial life planet is the easiest / cheapest to terraform of course. Otherwise we should just go for the dead ones.

[Africa]

Absolutely not anything with life more complex than microbes. To do to another planet what we've already done to earth - destroy it beyond recall before even scratching the surface of the knowledge to be gained of it - would be inexcusable. In any case, terraforming would only be permissible if a) we'd already studied it very extensively (decades or centuries) from "bubble" colonies that were sort of mini-terraformed zones, and b) there was a demonstrably pressing need for it (i.e. Earth's resources being genuinely depleted - not what we have now where there are currently enough resources but inequitable distribution, and huge wastage).

[Criptfeind]

decades or centuries

I still say that is way to long.

But eh.

[Africa]

How could we possibly justify pissing away what could be humanity's only chance to study an entire PLANET full of alien life? What could really be worth it?

With proper distribution of the earth's resources, proper distribution of birth control (and probably some enforced limits on childbearing) enough investment into sustainable energy sources, and of course drastic change in the first world's consumption habits, Earth can sustain billions of people, probably billions more than already exist. If the reason we think we need to colonize the other planet is to solve one of those problems, we should fix things here first before forever destroying something that may well be completely unique in the reachable universe.

[Bohandas]

Plus, colonizing an already inhabited planet kind of defeats the purpose. If there's nature around then you can't throw your garbage anywhere you want.

[woose1]

I think it's harder for people to sympathize with the space dogs when we have no really cute pictures of aliens that live on said planet. It's really hard to feel any sort of empathy for this little dude:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

...unless, of course, if he had the secret of immortality hidden in there. I voted 'Dead Planets only', if you couldn't tell. :/

[PTTG??]

One problem is that alien life might not be so clearly differentiated between "pre-life" "microbes" and "multicellular".

[woose1]

One problem is that alien life might not be so clearly differentiated between "pre-life" "microbes" and "multicellular".

Or something that consists of cells at all.

[Eagleon]

I'm kind of completely flip of Haschel here, in that I don't think it will ever be necessary to terraform or even colonize other worlds, if we do manage to get to the point where that's an option. Yadda yadda, technological singularity, uploads and constructs and AI, etc. This is if we don't do something weird, like Dune. There's already enough resources in our own asteroid belt to build more crap than our current population could ever want, and if we do run out, there's probably plenty more asteroid belts or small planetoids in other systems to exploit. I think we'll set up tourist destinations, and there will probably be plenty of contamination accidents, but other than that there won't be much profit in making a bunch of rocks gassier and wetter so that we can make it smoggy and unpleasant like Earth.

[Criptfeind]

How could we possibly justify pissing away what could be humanity's only chance to study an entire PLANET full of alien life? What could really be worth it?

1: If we needed the space or resources it would be worth it.

2: I was talking about microbial life. (Although at this point my arguments for it would count for other life as well in my mind.)

With proper distribution of the earth's resources, proper distribution of birth control (and probably some enforced limits on childbearing) enough investment into sustainable energy sources, and of course drastic change in the first world's consumption habits, Earth can sustain billions of people, probably billions more than already exist. If the reason we think we need to colonize the other planet is to solve one of those problems, we should fix things here first before forever destroying something that may well be completely unique in the reachable universe.

Yeah, but taking over a planet is easier then forcing people to do things and changing the way they think.

...unless, of course, if he had the secret of immortality hidden in there.

I am not even sure how you think that is possible, or even very relevant.

[Dutchling]

With proper distribution of the earth's resources, proper distribution of birth control (and probably some enforced limits on childbearing) enough investment into sustainable energy sources, and of course drastic change in the first world's consumption habits, Earth can sustain billions of people, probably billions more than already exist. If the reason we think we need to colonize the other planet is to solve one of those problems, we should fix things here first before forever destroying something that may well be completely unique in the reachable universe.

Do you really think mankind still only lives on earth when it has discovered
1, life on other planets
2, the technology to terraform a planet
3, the ability to travel to other solar systems
?

Also, most of the thigns you listed sounds pretty horrible to me.

[Dwarf]

Yeah, I don't get the whole overcrowding thing - we'll have to pull together and live a bit closer though.
Other than that, there are literary millions of hectares of land we can transform into farmland.